In recent years, printing control program products and printing apparatuses often have implemented therein a function of trial printing or sample printing (below called simply a trial printing function). The trial printing function often refers, for example, to printing using plain paper, without using special paper; or to printing one set in advance for printing multiple sets (see Patent documents 1 and 2, for example).
In recent years, the printing apparatuses have been supporting various post-processing functions, so that even those apparatuses which can perform processes from supplying paper to bookbinding, for example, have appeared. Moreover, in the commercial printing industry, a POD (Printing On Demand) operation which supplies a relatively small lot of printed matter to a customer in a short lead time has appeared. For the POD operation, orders are often received from multiple customers simultaneously.
Moreover, in the POD operation, a printing system including one printing control apparatus and multiple printing apparatuses is used, for example. These printing apparatuses included in such a printing system differ in capabilities such as post-processing functions (for example, stapling and punching), monochrome or color printing, and a sheet size for a paper-supplying tray.
For example, in order to suppress cost in the POD operation, trial printing, in which one set of printed matter is printed using plain paper and not using special paper, is utilized. Now, as the nature of the trial printing is such that it is performed in order to prevent printing from failing, it is desirable that the trial printing is processed by the same printing apparatus as normal printing.
In the printing system including one printing control apparatus and multiple printing apparatuses, when orders from multiple customers are received simultaneously, multiple trial printing and normal printing requests are apportioned to the printing apparatuses by the printing control apparatus based on capabilities demanded for the printing apparatus.
However, capabilities demanded for the printing apparatus differ between the trial printing and the normal printing. Therefore, there is a problem that the printing control apparatus causes processes to be performed such that the trial printing and the normal printing are apportioned to different printing apparatuses for printing.
Patent Documents
Patent Document 1: JP2005-234812A
Patent Document 2: JP2007-28105A